5 Social Media Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Business (And What To Do Instead)

Social media is a great way to amplify your business & marketing efforts. Used effectively it can really help you to grow. As a brand builder and follower earner, social media trumps many other ways of promoting your company. But, social media mistakes have the potential to bring down your reputation at lightning speed.

Here are five, easy to make mistakes you’ll want to avoid.

5 Social Media Mistakes To Avoid If You Love Your Business

1. Being Impolite

Manners matter. It might seem obvious but it’s shocking just how many companies ignore their followers. Always respond to questions. If you can’t give a full answer there and then, acknowledge the message and say you’ll get back to them later. Ignoring messages not only annoys the people who took the time to contact you, it can cause others to lose respect for you too when they see you haven’t replied. After all, would you like to buy from a company if it looks like they wouldn’t help you if you had a query?

2. Inconsistency

This applies two-fold: with posting and with your brand voice.

Often, social media isn’t taken as seriously as other marketing and so is prone to fall foul of inconsistent posting. Inconsistent posts = followers who don’t know what to expect from you. In short, if you can’t commit to them, why should they commit to you?

If you haven’t got the time to give to avoid this social media mistake, try a scheduling tool or get the experts in.

Secondly, inconsistency of brand voice will confuse your followers, diminish familiarity and increase buyer friction. If you have several people who post to your social media accounts, ensure they follow a strict style guide. In order to trust your brand, people like to feel they can get to know you. If your brand voice is always changing this becomes near impossible.

3. Pushy Posts

NEWSFLASH: businesses use social media as a tool for increasing sales (*shocked face*)!

Yes, it’s true. But that doesn’t mean you have to ram your products or services down your followers throat at every given opportunity. Social media interactions should be about quality content and engagement.

There’s no quicker way to turn off your audience than by being too pushy with your sales message. It comes across as insincere and can easily jeopardise your relationship with your consumers. As social media mistakes go, this one’s up there.

4. Robotic Responses

Programmed responses come across as lazy and insincere; you need to show your customers you genuinely care if they have a question or concern. Take the time to respond with unique messages to all of your enquiries. Customers don’t respond well to automated replies. Social media might be a digital interaction, but your customers are worth a human response to avoid losing them forever.

5. Insensitive Posts

One of the most damaging social media mistakes companies can make is to overstep the mark by being insensitive. Injecting personality into your brand is key to stand out. And social media is a great platform to do that. Your personality will be a big part of why people like and trust you.

But, your business social media is not the place for humour that is likely to offend or upset someone.

Think about how your posts might be received. Even if it’s not humour you’re posting. This is especially important if you’re basing your post around a sensitive topic. The last thing you want is to be seen to be exploiting a situation. Doing so can permanently ruin your reputation.

Conclusion

Social media has huge benefits to help you grow your business. However, if you don’t carefully plan and strategise your moves, you risk making stupid and costly social media mistakes like those above. Expert help can limit the room for error, so you can get on with driving your business forward with one less thing to worry about.

If you found this blog useful, you may also like to attend our upcoming interactive workshop at the Greater Birmingham & Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership: